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" STEALTH &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m addicted to visual speed,&amp;quot; says Rob Cohen, whose previous adrenaline rushes came from directing The Fast and the Furious and XXX. His latest film, Stealth, stars Josh Lucas as a fighter pilot who, fearing that unmanned aircraft will render human pilots obsolete, refuses to send one to destroy a terrorist stronghold in densely populated downtown Rangoon. (The city&amp;#039;s stand-in for the film is Bangkok.) Instead, Lucas&amp;#039;s character takes on the mission himself, piloting a hypersonic AFG Talon jet--a fictional, supersleek stealth fighter constructed of graphite, fiber, ceramic and metal. The terrorists are holed up in a building capped with a 14-ft.-thick, steel-reinforced roof. The only way to penetrate it is with a high-speed impact. So the pilot unleashes the Talon&amp;#039;s rear pulse-detonation engines--based on a real-life experimental NASA program--then divebombs the structure, dropping a fictional truncheon bomb traveling at hypersonic velocity and pulling up just before the blast. The scene demanded one of the most sophisticated miniature effects ever attempted. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m a pilot myself,&amp;quot; visual effects supervisor Joel Hynek says, &amp;quot;and Rob is a speed nut, so we were both having a good time on these shots.&amp;quot;  TOP GUNS: Jamie Foxx, Jessica Biel and Josh Lucas as fighter pilots in the action flick Stealth.  THE BIG BANG: In the movie Stealth, a fighter pilot must bomb a building housing terrorists. The film&amp;#039;s special effects crew worked for three months to create a realistic miniature that appeared to implode. Here, footage of the model&amp;#039;s collapse is superimposed on a shot of Bangkok. Computer-generated dust and debris were added later to heighten the effect.  MISSION IMPLODABLE Part 1: Stealth&amp;#039;s special effects crew constructed this 20-ft.-tall miniature of a 20-story building in Sydney, Australia. At one-tenth scale, the miniature was the right size to convey the building&amp;#039;s destruction realistically. To make it appear to implode, designers rigged it to descend into a 25-ft.-deep understructure below &amp;quot;street level.&amp;quot;  MISSION IMPLODABLE Part 2: For the big implosion scene in which the Talon bombs the building, a lever was used to release cables in rapid succession, which split the building into three sections. The center collapsed first, followed by the columns on either side. &amp;quot;Each column was on an elevator and would just slide down into shafts below the supposed ground level,&amp;quot; visual effects supervisor Joel Hynek says. After the columns collapsed, the thick concrete roof plunged into what had been the center of the building.  THE DUKES OF HAZZARD It&amp;#039;s impossible to think of The Dukes of Hazzard--that 1980s ode to speed, sex and Southern rebellion--without recalling the General Lee, the lightning-fast 1969 Dodge Charger with a rooftop Confederate flag. So director Jay Chandrasekhar made the General&amp;#039;s escapades the heart of the movie version, which stars Seann William Scott, Johnny Knoxville and Jessica Simpson as Bo, Luke and Daisy Duke. &amp;quot;When you get in the car with the Dukes, I wanted it to feel like you were getting in with that guy in high school who just floored it and was outta control,&amp;quot; Chandrasekhar says. &amp;quot;You got in that car once and never got in it again.&amp;quot; LICENSE TO TILT: While fleeing the fuzz, the Dukes of Hazzard must cant the General Lee on two wheels so it can fit through a narrow barn door. Rather than filming the sequence against a green screen, the crew used a front-wheel-drive, 500-hp machine called the Go Mobile (right). The General--minus its front wheels and engine--was mounted on a pneumatic ramp. Then the rig went speeding along with the cameras rolling and actors Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville inside. At the right moment, &amp;quot;we hit a button that pushed the car almost vertical,&amp;quot; stunt coordinator Darrin Prescott says.  GENERAL ADMISSION: In addition to filming the actors veering through the barn in the Charger atop the Go Mobile, the crew also shot stunt drivers making the same move (right). Why didn&amp;#039;t the cops follow the General? The filmmakers later added computer-generated barn doors to narrow the opening. And what stops the police from driving around the barn to give chase to the Charger? &amp;quot;Poetic license,&amp;quot; Prescott says.  OVERDRIVE: For some shots, a roll cage was attached to the roof of the General Lee. A rooftop stunt driver controlled the car, while the actors were filmed inside the vehicle as if they were driving.  JOYRIDERS: Johnny Knoxville, Jessica Simpson and Seann William Scott in The Dukes of Hazzard.  HAZZARDS OF FILMMAKING: A stunt driver tilts the General Lee in the chase leading up to the climactic barn sequence. SUPERCROSS While filming Supercross: The Movie at the Supercross season&amp;#039;s final race in Las Vegas, former pro-riders-turned-stunt-drivers battled 80-ft. triple jumps, whoop-de-do mogul fields and real dirt-bike racers.   HOT WHEELS: Actors were shot against a green screen (right), so their images could be superimposed into the film. In Vegas, stuntmen competed on stock 60-hp Honda CRF450s. Like the real racers, the stunt riders had to qualify for the finals. Stuntman Rich Taylor, a former Supercross champ, made the cut: &amp;quot;I was there to win,&amp;quot; he says, &amp;quot;no matter who I had to knock down.&amp;quot;  FANTASTIC FOUR In the Marvel comic book series, a galactic mishap mutates astronaut Ben Grimm into a rock behemoth--The Thing (Michael Chiklis in the film version). Here&amp;#039;s how makeup artists turned Chiklis into a rock star. FACIAL MAKEUP: It consisted of three flexible pieces made to resemble solid rock--a hood with a shoulder flange to cover most of Chiklis&amp;#039;s head; a prosthetic to transform his brow, nose, cheeks and upper lip; and a third piece to alter his lower lip and chin. BODY MAKEUP: The Thing&amp;#039;s bodysuit was made of seven pieces that snapped or buckled together. Artists sculpted smaller pieces of &amp;quot;rock&amp;quot; to get more flex out of the crook of the arms and the elbows. &amp;quot;At the end of the day,&amp;quot; director Tim Story says, &amp;quot;he is not a beast, he is a person stuck in an extraordinary situation.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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